[wvns] 2007 Spying Cost US $50 Billion
2007 Spying Said to Cost $50 Billion
Some Formerly Classified Figures Are to Be Disclosed Today
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 30, 2007; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/29/AR2007102902062.html
The director of national intelligence will disclose today that
national intelligence activities amounting to roughly 80 percent of
all U.S. intelligence spending for the year cost more than $40
billion, according to sources on Capitol Hill and inside the
administration.
The disclosure means that when military spending is added, aggregate
U.S. intelligence spending for fiscal 2007 exceeded $50 billion,
according to these sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity
because the total remains classified.
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Adm. Mike McConnell will announce that the fiscal 2007 national
intelligence program figure, classified up to now, is being made
public at the urging of the Sept. 11 commission and the insistence of
Congress, which turned the commission's recommendation into law. The
commission's plan was to have the president make the figure public
each year.
While the budget figure released by McConnell excludes intelligence
programs for the separate military services, it includes the budgets
of the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI's intelligence
programs, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research
and the major Defense Department intelligence collection agencies.
The latter group includes the National Security Agency, which
intercepts electronic communications; the National Reconnaissance
Office, which builds and manages intelligence satellites; and the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which does image collection.
They compose a major part of the $40 billion-plus national
intelligence budget.
In October 1997, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet disclosed that
$26.6 billion was the aggregate amount appropriated for intelligence
and intelligence-related activities for fiscal year 1997. He said he
saw no harm to national security in such a disclosure.
Tenet also released an aggregate amount for fiscal 1998. It was $26.7
billion, or an increase of $100 million. Since that time, the overall
intelligence budget has remained classified, despite several legal
challenges to make the figure public.
At a public meeting in 2005, Mary Margaret Graham, the deputy director
of national intelligence for collection, said the annual intelligence
budget was $44 billion, including the budget for the military
services. The figure was never officially confirmed.
At that time, Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government
Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, who had
unsuccessfully sued to get the figure published, told reporters the
Graham slip was "ironic," adding: "We sued the CIA four times for this
kind of information and lost. You can't get it through legal channels."
In July, Aftergood told the House intelligence committee: "There is no
single declassification action that would signal the end to obsolete
classification practices as clearly and powerfully as declassification
of the total annual intelligence budget."
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